Summary

Mecubic’s growth was not a wholesale replacement of DLP, but a bet on LCD hitting the right cost-performance inflection point: 陈跃云 says DLP is a technology covered by an exclusive US patent, with a finished projector costing roughly RMB3,000-4,000; China’s LCD technology follows a different route, genuinely sidesteps the patent, and costs just one-fifth or even one-tenth as much as DLP. Starting in 2020-2021, BOE and other manufacturers continued to iterate; 陈跃云 also says China’s LCD optical engines reached 80% of global share in 2023, giving the country pricing power across the industry. The host summed up the pace of growth as Mecubic going from zero to the global sales Top 10.
陈跃云 started the business without outside funding, using the couple’s savings of more than RMB100,000 and 200 set-top boxes costing about RMB400 each. He deliberately avoided low-barrier small goods, preferring products with “some threshold” and the potential to build a moat once executed well. From 2018 through 2023, he held the No. 1 position in AliExpress’s set-top-box category for years.
He expected white-label sellers to move gradually into brands, and put the threshold at a minimum of RMB100M-plus in annual sales. He had wanted to build a brand from the outset, but companies with too little scale and market share could not absorb the R&D and branding spend. Only after sales stepped up in 2019-2020 did he gradually move into R&D, product customization and even chip selection, eventually setting up an in-house R&D team once the business was large enough. The end goal was to make consumers “remember who you are.”
The breakout was a combination of “timing, place and people,” with platform subsidies providing a critical push. The host recalled that monthly sales topped $1M during Double 11 in 2023 and emptied the warehouse, then exceeded $6M during 618 in 2024. 陈跃云 said inventory turnover fell below 1 day, while the original sales forecast was only about half the actual result. In some South American markets, AliExpress would directly subsidize the dollar gap if the price could not be brought down to $50, while also providing traffic, operator support and local advertising resources.
陈跃云’s plain-English summary of the platform landscape was: “One platform is currently geared toward making money (Amazon); the other is geared toward supporting brands (AliExpress).” He sees Amazon as more focused on regional markets and monetizing through commissions and service fees, while AliExpress spends on subsidies and traffic to support brands. The host described AliExpress as an “incubator” betting on the upgrade of China’s supply chain and the emergence of Chinese brands with global reach; 陈跃云 called the characterization accurate. He expects Russia and Brazil to have initially ranked as the first- and second-largest markets, describing the route as “encircling the cities from the countryside.”
The host said the company pioneered LCD ultra-short-throw technology: the industry typically used a throw ratio above 1.1, while the company got to 0.9 relatively early and to 0.6 with a new product last year; the smaller the throw ratio, the larger the image projected at close range, and 陈跃云 confirmed the technology has been patented, judged short-term teardown and reverse engineering difficult, and acknowledged that in China’s mature supply chain the moat may ultimately be only a question of time.
Asked whether a low-margin red ocean can produce a century-old company, 陈跃云’s answer was that “it should be possible,” but only under certain conditions. Once the industry enters a mature, stable phase, the brands most likely to endure will be those that stay consumer-led and keep their product technology ahead of both the market and competitors. A brand also needs a clear mission and detailed research into its segment; he calls high-quality low prices a “quality-to-price ratio” rather than simple “value-for-money.”

Deep dive

1. The cold start of a physics master: RMB100K-plus in savings, 200 expensive set-top boxes, and no low-barrier business

陈跃云 is from Hunan and holds a master’s degree in condensed-matter physics from the Institute of Solid State Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He worked as a pre-university study-abroad teacher, spent roughly 3 years in finance, then quit to start a business, beginning on AliExpress with TV Boxes. His company focuses on the R&D and sales of home audiovisual equipment and has built a presence across the world’s top 10 e-commerce platforms. He chose set-top boxes for 2 reasons: his technical background gave him an edge in consumer electronics, and Shenzhen’s supply chain could move from R&D to production quickly—2-3 months at the fastest.
There was no outside funding at any point. The business started with the couple’s savings from several years of work—more than RMB100,000. In the early days, they could not afford to hire many employees, so they handled most tasks themselves. The first shipment consisted of 200 set-top boxes at a cost of roughly RMB400 each. Compared with small goods priced at tens of yuan, 陈跃云 preferred products with some barriers to entry and the potential to build a moat after execution.
The initial low point was quality control, but it did not have a major impact. Sales and profits subsequently grew more or less on the prior year’s base. The high point was holding the No. 1 position in AliExpress’s set-top-box category from 2018 through 2023, while helping small factories that had been near breakeven grow sales, capacity and profits by multiple times after 2-3 years of cooperation. The host summarized the pace as Mecubic going from zero to the global sales Top 10.

2. Why white-label sellers move into brands: RMB100M-plus is the investment threshold, and the goal is to make consumers remember you

陈跃云 divides the more than 10 years of cross-border e-commerce into 3 stages: pure trade arbitrage—sell whatever the market offers; specialist sellers—understand technical R&D and consumer preferences; and brands—which require sharper positioning, stronger R&D, greater supply-chain integration and a clear brand mission.
His view is that after the industry and cross-border e-commerce accelerated in 2019-2020, competition would only intensify. Selling cheaply, understanding technology or having strong R&D capabilities would not be enough. The end goal was to make consumers “remember who you are,” so that the next time they wanted a set-top box or projector, they would think of the brand directly.
He had the brand ambition early in his entrepreneurial journey, but the investment was too large to bear when scale and market share were still small. Annual sales were then in the RMB10M range; he believed the business needed to exceed RMB100M before it could absorb the associated investment. Early on, the company paid development fees to capable factories to handle outsourced R&D. Once scale was sufficient, it could build its own R&D team and develop products fully to its own requirements, potentially improving efficiency. It might also have to put profits back into product development for 2-3 consecutive years.

3. The technology inflection point: LCD bypasses the US DLP patent and cuts costs to one-fifth

The immediate reason for moving into projectors was that set-top-box functions were increasingly integrated into televisions and projectors, with set-top-box sales peaking in 2019-2020. At the same time, 陈跃云 began tracking the projector market in 2020. DLP was then dominant and protected by patents; Chinese manufacturers could only buy off-the-shelf chip solutions, putting the cost of a finished projector at roughly RMB3,000-4,000—out of line with his mass-market positioning.
The breakthrough came from LCD liquid-crystal display technology. 陈跃云 stresses that LCD and DLP follow completely different technical routes, genuinely bypassing the patent. He also says Chinese LCD optical engines reached 80% of global share in 2023, giving China direct control of industry pricing. A decade ago, DLP could already deliver 1080P while LCD could not. But from 2020-2021 onward, manufacturers including BOE continued upgrading, bringing LCD costs down to one-fifth or even one-tenth of DLP, while image fineness and brightness largely closed the gap.
After deciding to enter projectors, the company kept buying new samples from brands and factories across both China and overseas, ranging from products priced at several hundred yuan to RMB10K-20K. Some LCD products were imperfect, but the team saw signs that consumers might accept them. At the time, the output from a product priced at several hundred yuan was several generations behind today’s RMB400-500 products; it may have been suitable only as a toy for children, with a very blurry image.
The host asked: if the company had bought other manufacturers’ samples, meaning others had entered the market earlier, what gave it a chance to overtake them? 陈跃云 did not focus on beating competitors. He wanted to find a technology that fit the brand’s development and that most consumers could afford, while betting on LCD projectors moving from low-end into the mid-range and mid-to-high-end segments without giving up value for money.

4. Not the first mover, but a bet on the trend: supply-chain coordination with BOE

陈跃云 met BOE through the upstream and downstream supply chain. As sales grew, the company needed to plan inventory for the second half of the year in advance and began giving suppliers input on the display panels needed for the next generation of products. The host compared this with DJI soliciting feedback from source suppliers to lower costs and improve performance during product design. 陈跃云 confirmed that the cooperation involved not only BOE but the entire upstream and downstream chain.
He believes BOE’s state-owned-enterprise background and national-level investment have helped advance LCD R&D, which requires long-term capital, and helped prevent certain technologies from remaining monopolized by overseas players. BOE’s LCD technology should also be considered globally leading.
The host said the company later pioneered LCD ultra-short-throw technology, which allows a screen of more than 100 inches to be projected in a confined space. 陈跃云 described the progression: most of the industry used throw ratios above 1.1, such as 1.2 or 1.3; the company reached 0.9 relatively early, and a new product last year reached 0.6. The lower the throw ratio, the shorter the distance required to project an image of the same size.
The technology has been patented. 陈跃云 believes competitors should find short-term teardown and reverse engineering difficult, and even if they started now, they might still arrive later. But he also acknowledges that with China’s mature supply chain, the moat may eventually come down to how much time the company has bought.

5. Post-mortem on the sales explosion: inventory turns under 1 day, while the RMB10B subsidy program improved the $50 price line

The host recalled that monthly sales topped $1M during Double 11 in 2023, emptying the warehouse, while sales exceeded $6M during 618 in 2024. 陈跃云 confirmed that 2023 Double 11 sales far exceeded expectations. Inventory turnover may have fallen below 1 day, with finished units sent to the warehouse as soon as they passed QC to minimize stockouts.
The product’s data had already been strong for several months, but the company’s original sales forecast was only about half the actual result. Suppliers, production and logistics all had to keep coordinating, while the platform worked with the company throughout to resolve inventory issues.
AliExpress’s support included the RMB10B subsidy program during Double 11, traffic support, professional operations from its account managers and local advertising resources. 陈跃云 gave the example of certain South American markets where tariffs made the $50 price point difficult: if the product could not reach $50, the platform would directly subsidize the dollar gap, improving price competitiveness. He recalls that similar arrangements existed as early as 2022, while the name was formally adopted only in 2024.
He attributes the sales explosion to “timing, place and people”: the technology happened to hit its inflection point, suppliers firmly backed the company and its brand, and the platform supplied a large pool of advantageous resources. Without the platform’s strong support, even a breakout product would not have become a phenomenon so quickly. The host added that the product and technology themselves also had to be solid.

6. AliExpress vs. Amazon: “One platform is geared toward making money; the other toward supporting brands”

In 陈跃云’s view, AliExpress evolved from a platform that simply helped merchants sell goods into a partner that helps take brands global, provides professional operating guidance and treats merchants as part of the platform ecosystem. It has also built up overseas channels, logistics capabilities and overseas warehouses. He says no platform anywhere covers as many selling countries and regions as AliExpress.
He sees Amazon as more focused on regional markets and on generating profit through relatively high commissions and service fees. AliExpress, by contrast, can put real money into brand subsidies and traffic support. His plain-language summary is: “One platform is currently geared toward making money; the other is geared toward supporting brands” (一个平台目前是以赚钱为目的，一个平台是以扶持品牌为目的).
The host described AliExpress’s underlying strategy as a bet on the complete upgrade of China’s supply chain and the rise of a large group of Chinese brands with global reach, calling the platform a brand incubator. 陈跃云 said the characterization was “highly accurate.” He also believes AliExpress was initially dominated by white-label goods and acquired a low-price label, which is why its current objective is high-quality low pricing—a “quality-to-price ratio” (质价比), not merely “value-for-money” (性价比).
On the early breakthroughs in Russia and Brazil, 陈跃云 believes Russia may have been the No. 1 market and Brazil the No. 2, though he does not know the platform’s precise strategy. These were markets Amazon did not cover, giving the path something of a “countryside encircling the cities” dynamic. The host added that demand for Chinese goods was also substantial in these markets, a point 陈跃云 agreed with.

7. Comparing managed-fulfillment models: the hard risk is unsold inventory in overseas warehouses

陈跃云 explains overseas managed fulfillment as a model in which the platform handles sales, sells the product at a fixed price and settles with the merchant at that price. The host noted that AliExpress already had strong logistics channels and had moved early to establish overseas warehouses across multiple countries.
In the comparison, TikTok entered e-commerce later and offers greater volatility: sales can spike sharply and fall just as sharply, while its managed-fulfillment model is still in the early stages. Temu may place greater emphasis on product subsidies and traffic support, but its global overseas logistics network is relatively new. SHEIN may currently have the advantage in apparel. Amazon FBA is not managed fulfillment—it provides warehousing and logistics, but does not subsidize products or sell on behalf of merchants.
Managed fulfillment is not frictionless. Once goods and inventory are sitting in overseas warehouses, large volumes of unsold stock create significant pressure; handling costs are high, and shipping the goods back to China is impractical. A forecast that misses sales by too wide a margin can also cause stockouts, with replenishment sometimes impossible in the short term.

8. Brand mission and the century-old-company question: can a low-margin red ocean support long-termism?

Mecubic’s brand mission is to advance the projector industry, push upstream suppliers to upgrade R&D in areas such as screens and lenses, and break the idea that projectors must be luxury products—putting useful projectors into ordinary households everywhere.
The host summarized the difference between white-label sellers and brands as follows: white-label sellers only need to get products sold, while brands need to penetrate the consumer’s mind. 陈跃云 agreed. A brand also needs a clear positioning and mission, and must research its segments in detail; consumer preferences may differ across European countries, for example, and third-party firms can be hired to conduct consumer research. 陈跃云 calls high-quality low pricing a “quality-to-price ratio” rather than “value-for-money,” which the host further described as delivering quality above expectations at a more rational price.
The host asked whether the high prices of major Western brands include the cost of after-sales service, quality control, R&D and long-term sustainability, and whether China’s hypercompetitive, low-margin environment can produce a century-old company. 陈跃云 said it “should be possible,” provided the company follows a brand strategy and continues iterating its technology. Once the industry enters a mature and stable phase, scale may no longer grow rapidly; the businesses that truly endure should still be brands that remain consumer-led and keep their product technology ahead of both the market and their peers.

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